Archives for March 2017

Issue 38 of FeedFront is headed to the printer and subscribers will be getting their copies in the coming weeks.

This issue of FeedFront Magazine includes Face-to-Face Networking in an Online World by Michelle Held, Meditation Makes Happy Affiliate Marketers by Sean Yoon McDevitt, and Dollar a Day Facebook Hacks by Dennis Yu.

If you’re not familiar with the Meet Market, it is an extended session of structured, face to face networking on the Sunday of Affiliate Summit. Affiliate programs and networks have tables set to meet with affiliates to discuss their offers and cut deals. Vendors that cater to affiliates and merchants will also have tables to share information about their products and services. Each table is a meeting spot for teaching, learning, closing deals, creating partnerships, and finding new opportunities.

June 12, 2017 will be the fifteenth anniversary of the day my father passed away. He was 61.

I have vivid memories of Sundays as a kid. My dad would be jovial in the morning, but by dinner time, there would be a sadness to him. I noticed it, but didn’t understand it until years later when he told me how much he didn’t like his work.

Over the years, he worked at a series of city, state, and federal government jobs. This provided him financial security, but not much else.

He spent the last five years or so of his life sharing the countdown to his retirement. That’s when he was going to enjoy the weekends, and Sunday nights through happy hour on Friday, too.

Things didn’t go as planned. He died shortly before the countdown to retirement reached zero days.

That had a big impact on me. At the time, I was running the affiliate program for ClubMom.com, and my book, “Successful Affiliate Marketing for Merchants” was recently published. I was steadily making progress career-wise with titles and salaries, but I was missing something.

I started noticing that my Sunday nights were getting harder. I was feeling unsatisfied with my job. Well, it was more a feeling like I was wasting my time. I was living the movie Office Space, and I even had a Red Swingline Stapler on my desk.

Each day, as I settled into my cubicle, I’d feel like I couldn’t breathe all the way. That’s not some metaphor. It was real. The idea that I was going to settle for weekends was suffocating me. Something had to change.

That’s where serendipity came into play. A year earlier, I’d met Missy Ward at an event called Affiliate Force. We were conference friends and virtual strangers. We hung out again in April 2003 at the annual Affiliate Force, and got to talking about ways the event could be better, but how the organizer was resistant to our ideas.

A few weeks later, we had a chat on the phone, and AffiliateSummit.com was registered on May 19, 2003. Both of us kept our day jobs as we struggled to get this new idea off the ground. There were lots of hurdles, including a lack of money and experience.

Over time, we left our jobs to focus on Affiliate Summit. Being my own boss got me in a good place. A place where Sunday nights were now exciting, because there were new opportunities ahead of me on Monday morning.

I was in a good place in my head, but not geographically. Then a move to Austin got me in a great place.

This was my tribe: people who spoke my language. They worked at startups and tech companies. Mentioning affiliate marketing got a knowing glance, instead of a twisted face of confusion. I got them, and they got me.

Meeting speaker deadlines if you previously spoke at an Affiliate Summit.

What topics are preferred?

Submit a proposal based on your expertise, not what you think we want to see.

Proposals should be of an advanced nature. We are not interested in introductory material. Also, it must be original material – don’t propose a session you’ve already given at Affiliate Summit or somewhere else.

Affiliate Summit East 2017 is taking place on July 30 – August 1, 2017 at the New York Marriott Marquis.

This three day conference includes three tradeshow areas packed with affiliates, merchants, vendors, networks, technology providers, digital agencies, and traffic sources.

There will also be multiple tracks of relevant educational sessions delivered by industry experts; a variety of networking events; and online tools to help you connect with other attendees before, during and after the event.